Burnout and stress continue to be prevalent in the workplace, yet few industries are feeling the burn quite as intensely as IT. You just have to look at the figures to prove that new pressures and pain points just keep adding to the workloads of IT leaders. New global 2023 research targeting Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) found burnout and stress to be the most significant personal risk CISOs face in their role today, for the second consecutive year. Not only that, but the number reporting burnout and stress jumped up notably year on year. A recent GoTo study found that 65% of businesses say their IT team workloads have increased over the last year, with 92% reporting that reducing this burden is a critical consideration when choosing their IT software.
What’s behind the burnout?
Recent years have meant that IT Professionals have had to make hard work and agility their mission critical. As the need for tech in business keeps ramping up, IT teams have doubled down like never before to lay all the right foundations for business success and survival. The old protocols are out while ushered in are hybrid and work from anywhere teams and rapid digital transformation with more devices and infinite data to secure far beyond the secure perimeters of the office.
The new working world has arrived with a bang and IT Professionals have never been as critical to or as synonymous with its success. But with that shift comes the white-hot heat of demanding hours and smaller teams as businesses do battle against cost of living and talent shortage challenges. IT pros have been working at pace to protect their teams at all costs but with sky high reports of elevated burnout, it’s clear these levels of stress are unworkable in the long term. The only end result will be driving good talent out of the industry completely.
A new style of leadership
Today, we need a total rethink and reset on how we turn the tide on the worrying burnout trend. Business demands are evolving and so too must the role of IT leaders. Once upon a time IT leaders were a siloed part of most businesses, beavering away without complaint in the background. Today they are an indispensable bridge between the C-suite and an entire organisation’s security posture, working to drive value and buy-in to IT management and security in ways that resonate with everyone at every level across a workforce.
As the world becomes increasingly built on software, today the transformational IT leader must map out a future where consolidation and smarter more streamlined ways of working are all the name of the game. This approach must bring together the very best in both technology and people strategies. It’s essential groundwork but consolidating tech, automating workflows and embedding streamlining into the approach are all essential parts of the process. This will allow IT leaders to make smart choices that empowers teams. Today the transformational IT leader is more than ever a people manager who is charged primarily with helping workforces change their behaviours to support the working world of today. Here’s what a transformational IT leader needs to have in their roadmap right now:
Success through streamlining
Consolidation among SMBs has become increasingly popular as decision makers start to acknowledge its many benefits. The main advantages being increased productivity, lower costs, and ease of management.
The recent report on IT Priorities sees 83% of businesses considering consolidation of communication and IT management and support tools an important initiative for 2023. Crucially, this consolidation helps to alleviate the burden on IT, a key goal for 92% of the report’s respondents. It can do this by providing greater oversight and control for less money whilst increasing employee productivity – a golden triangle of outcomes amid the current economic headwinds.
Consolidation of tools is even more valuable when IT teams are provided with a comprehensive view of operations. Unifying status updates, performance insights, and more information in a single dashboard to control and monitor processes, through a remote monitoring tool, can dramatically improve workflows and enable quick resolutions without overburdening IT teams.
Automation: paving the way for increased efficiency
For businesses that do not have dedicated support staff to handle administrative, customer service, or other time-consuming tasks, IT automation tools can be the difference between growth or stagnation. Automating tedious tasks frees up time for teams to focus on projects that require detailed human attention and move the business forward, allowing companies to allocate resources more effectively. It can also serve as a morale boosting tactic, helping employees to tick more off their never-ending to-do list by giving them valuable time back to focus on more fulfilling tasks.
Furthermore, automating certain business practices helps to alleviate the stress put on individuals and avoid bottlenecks at the same time. Simplifying tasks and responsibilities means that teams aren’t left in limbo if colleagues are out sick or away from their desk – knowledge and workloads can easily be shared and managed without direct management.
For all these reasons, built-in automation features are considered absolutely critical when choosing new business solutions. Moreover, integrations with new generative AI technologies like ChatGPT are introducing even more valuable automation capabilities across applications like customer engagement, generating and running programming scripts, and more. AI chatbots can also aid in IT ticket deflection and resolution which would otherwise need to be opened and worked on by support staff. All of this means that AI tools are increasingly handling even complex tasks with minimal time and resources required from human team members.
Collaboration and pooling resources for greater impact
The final piece of the puzzle is complete when companies can make the most of the resources already available to them. By eliminating the limitations of a traditional in-office mindset, businesses can combine resources by region and empower transformational IT teams to offer support from anywhere, anytime.
A company with multiple offices around the country can still effectively operate with one shared IT team to look after different regions. Additionally, implementing unified problem management processes across teams and employee locations can ensure faster resolution times when incidents do occur, and significantly reduce the potential for subsequent disruptions. Sharing resources and practices in this way can save significant costs, reduce downtimes, and improve efficiency. And with 50% of businesses still using hybrid workplace models, IT management needs to reflect this flexibility.
This is why features such as unattended access and multi-session handling are now considered essential. A remote access tool can not only minimise operational downtime and ensure continuity, but also save on travel expenses and office costs – allowing IT teams to support customers and colleagues from anywhere in the world. Additionally, when companies no longer need to worry about providing support in close physical proximity to their employees, this also means that companies can recruit and source the top talent for the job they need, regardless of their location.
The road ahead
In times of uncertainty, budgets are squeezed, and workloads are stretched to capacity. Ultimately, the keys to success during such times are streamlining technology and prioritising the people that make up a workforce. By looking for ways to consolidate their technology stack, automating menial tasks where possible, and pooling resources, companies can reinvest money into employees and customers instead. Let’s lean into these approaches so we beat burnout and help put people first in today’s workplace.
Jen Brown, Senior Director, EMEA at GoTo
The opinions expressed in this post belong to the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Information Security Buzz.